Meditation: Haggai

As I usually have times to write on Saturday's, it would probably be a good thing to begin posting meditations prior to Sunday. In this spirit, these are the conclusions from a talk I gave on the book of Haggai this morning for your consideration:

What are the lessons that Haggai has for believers living under the New Covenant?

1) When faced with difficulties in executing God’s will, what do we do – do we fall away, waiting until an appropriate time to “build the Lord’s temple”, or do we press on in the face of difficulties which God allows into our lives to test us? Matthew Henry says

“There is an aptness in us to interpret providential discouragements in our duty, as if they amounted to a discharge from our duty, when they are only intended for the trial and exercise of our courage and faith. It is bad to neglect our duty, but it is worse to vouch Providence for the patronising of our neglects.”

2) Do we love God and His purposes more than we love our own? God is speaking to the returned Jews of their money and time/effort, but the same is true for us as well? Who has our heart? Whose kingdom are we building – ours or God’s? One last forever with eternal rewards; the other, as Peter says in 2nd Peter 3:10 “both the earth and all the works that are in it will be burned up.” Matthew Henry says “Those are very much strangers to their interests who prefer the conveniences and ornaments of the temporal life before the absolute necessities of the spiritual life, who are full of care to enrich their own houses, while God’s temple in their hearts lies waste, and nothing is done about it.”

3) God uses circumstances in our lives to get our attention. There is no hard and fast rule that says that obeying God in all things will always result in the Christian prospering materially and physically (much to the annoyance of many health and wealth gospel preachers). But it is a general principle throughout the Bible that obeying God brings blessing, disobeying God brings punishment – or, to paraphrase Randy Alcorn “Obeying God is always smart, disobeying God is always stupid.” We also know from God’s character that He loves us as a father loves his children, and He will use circumstances to chasten us for the purposes of discipline and to correct our wandering ways. As Solomon writes in Proverbs 3: 11-12 and the writer of Hebrews quotes in Hebrews 12: 5-6 “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction; For whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as father the son in whom He delights.

So the question then becomes are there circumstances occurring in our life right now that indicate something is not right in our lives? There is the suffering that God allows to purifying us – absolutely. But there is also the suffering and circumstances that God allows as the result of sin or getting off track from His will. We would find it sad and silly if the driver of a car, when suddenly veering to the lane dividers did not pull back into the lane but said, as you were jostling along “Don’t worry – this will clear up in a minute?. When we knowingly disobey God, when the circumstances come and yet, we have “no idea” why they have occurred, we are no less foolish.

4) Finally, when we are confronted with our failure to serve God’s purposes, do we immediately seek to repent and return to what we were called to, or do we seek to justify ourselves, or come up with reasons that we can’t, or continue with what we were doing before? The quicker we repent and do what the Lord commands, the quicker we can return to area of blessing. Matthew Henry again “Those that have lost time have need to redeem time, and the longer we have loitered in that which is good the more haste we should make when we are convinced of our folly.”

In closing, most of you know the story of Jim Elliot, missionary to the Auca Indians. I won’t recount his story here, but I will finish with a paragraph concerning him from the Holman Old Testament Commentary on Haggai:

“The world probably looked at the death of Jim Elliot as a waste. He had so much promise – the charisma, the talent! He could have accomplished so much in the world. He died so young (not even thirty). He was foolish to have thrown away his life like that. Yet Elliott himself answers such criticisms. In his diary, Jim wrote these classic words: ‘He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.’ The apostle John put it this way: ‘The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.’(1 John 2:17). Haggai calls on us to put God and His kingdom first at all costs. This is all that will endure. In C.T. Studd’s words, ‘Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; Only what’s done for Christ will last.'"